1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data holding device, and in particular, relates to a nonvolatile technique thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
As a data holding device that is used for a sequential circuit such as a latch circuit, there is known a circuit having two inverter circuits connected in series like a loop, for example. However, such a data holding device usually holds data only in a volatile manner, so the data will be lost when the power supply is turned off. In other words, even if the power supply is turned on again, the data stored before the power supply is turned off cannot be restored.
Therefore, when a sequence process utilizing the latch circuit having the data holding device is interrupted for some reason, the power supply should not be turned off for holding the data, while the power is consumed. In addition, if the sequence process is interrupted by a power failure or other accident, it is necessary to restart the process from the beginning with a large loss of time.
FIG. 46 illustrates a circuit of a data holding device according to a conventional example.
The data holding device illustrated in FIG. 27 includes a ferroelectric element CL connected to a signal line (a thick line in FIG. 27 on which held data shows up as a voltage signal) in a storage element having a loop structure portion (enclosed by a broken line in FIG. 27) constituted of inverters INVx and INVy.
When the power supply is turned off, a remanent polarization state of the ferroelectric element CL is set by using a voltage value on the signal line, so that data is written in the ferroelectric element CL. Such the writing action enables to store the data in a nonvolatile manner even after the power supply is turned off.
On the other hand, when the data written in the ferroelectric element CL is read out, the node N is set to a floating state after the power supply is turned on. Then, in this state, a voltage pulse is applied to an end of the ferroelectric element CL via the plate line PL, so that a voltage signal corresponding to the remanent polarization state of the ferroelectric element CL is generated at the node N. The voltage signal generated at the node N is decided to be 0 or 1 as data (0-1 decision) based on to the conventional data holding device described above a threshold value of the inverter INVx.